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Topic: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way (Read 464 times) |
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nutty2chat2003
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ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 5:23am » |
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I haven't been in the message boards for over a year because I'm in remission. Haven't had a cluster in over a year!! I don't know why or how, I just spend my days thanking God for it and praying they don't come back.
But, of course, my life can't go completely unaffected by ClusterMonster. My husband and I are working on a mortgage application to buy our first home. The loan officer wants an explanation of our medical bill history. Before remission I was seeing the nuero about twice a week. That plus all the meds and missing alot of work for appointments and such put a big hurt on our credit. What do I tell the loan officer? He wants me to tell him it was a one time event like a car accident (although it felt like a car accident about three or four times a night) and that it won't happen again. Over the last year, we've worked really hard to clear up alot of stuff, but at $175-$250 per visit (alot weren't covered by insurance because they were "experimental" ), it's taken some time.
Has anyone else dealt with this? I feel like maybe I should try to hide it because, as much as I would like to say I'M CURED, I realize I've been in remission for long periods of time before, and more than likely they'll be back. I don't want to lie to the guy, but I don't want to open a can of worms either.
I'm sorry to whine to all of you who are still in pain. Reading the posts breaks my heart for all of you. I'm not so far past my cycle that I've forgotten what you're going through. After my last cycle, I promised I would live life to the fullest in my pain free days. The pain has already robbed me of so much, I can't bear to let it keep me from my dream of owning my own home. Any adivce is welcome.
Thanks,
Angela
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Turts
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #1 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 5:42am » |
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Sorry Angela,
I cant help here. However I would suggest implying that to your knowledge it is a one of thing and there is no reason to expect it to occur again. This is partly true as you never know when/if the beast will come a knockin.
But wishing you the best of luck.
Turts
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'I'm very brave generally,' he went on in a low voice: 'only today I happen to have a headache.' (Lewis Carroll)
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Kevin_M
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #2 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 5:43am » |
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Angela,
Why agonize over which little fib to tell, when they may make you substantiate what you say anyway. Put down cluster headaches and let them scratch their heads from there. If they don't know about them, then let them do their homework. If they do, then the medical history is understandable. You may add that the "syndrome" seems to have been taken care of by all those medical bills, therefore it could be a "one time thing." No harm, no foul.
The car accident fib may require an accident report and follow- up medical reports. The cluster reason, well all the medical history is there to prove. If you are lucky enough to not be struck by them again, well, then it was a one time thing. Your medical history will bear that all out. They may figure that the neuro "cured" you because the medical expenses ceased, and have ceased for two years. Being it was a neuro you saw, they may "think" it was a psychological reason, if they are not familiar with clusters, and that psychological reason for the headaches has been "cured" by the neuro.
I don't know, just thinking in the dark.
Kevin M.
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Donna
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #3 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 6:26am » |
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Angela:
Happy to hear that you have been pain free!!! I certainly hope it continues for you.
It would be interesting to know what meds worked for you when you last had CH.
What was your chat name when you used to come here? Just trying to place you.
Glad you came by...stay awhile.
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Nimbus
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #4 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 6:52am » |
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Hi Angela!
This is interesting 'cause I've ran into the same problems two years ago when we bought the house we live in.
The solution we found: gather more money. We asked a relative to loan us som cash. At first we had about 10% of the house value in cash then after we had like 25% of the house cash. This way, the loan officer can't say a word and can only give you what you want (here in Canada, Quebec anyway).
So now we have a paiement on the house and a paiement to the relative.
I tend to agree with Kevin_M. Let them scratch their head.
Ex.:
-Hummm.... Cluster Headaches? It's a kind of headache, right?
-Right boss!
As for hidding it: I don't think that it is good to hide. The thing I usually do, however, is to be not too much explicative (that's why some girls find me mysterious  )
Like don't say it all, just say something. When you don't speak at all, people tend to imagine the worst.
Wish you good luck.
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t_h_b
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #5 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 7:29am » |
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To me, this one is very clear cut although I see your dilemma.
I think that your medical condition is really not any of your loan officer's business. (At least it shouldn't be.) He is really just interested in your financial condition, i.e., your ability to repay the loan.
You can quite honestly tell him that "the trouble that I was having a year ago with headaches shouldn't cause any problems in the future and should have no affect on our ability to make our mortgage payments." Strictly speaking, that's the truth, because the problems you had a year ago are over and done with.
You could explain how you were able to spend $1500 a month or so for a neurologist and how conscientious you were about eradicating that debt so quickly. Also explain that you haven't missed work since then and that your employer considered you worth keeping despite the problems you had. Might even make you more loan-worthy in his eyes.
You might also point out that anybody he makes a loan to could get run over by a car or keel over with a heart attack. I'll bet he doesn't check everybody's cholesterol level and ask whether they get aerobic exercise three times a week!
Quite often in medicine a year free of symptoms would be considered cured so you might get your neurologist to write a statement to that effect on a prescription pad or letterhead if it comes to that. You could work it out with your neurologist so he doesn't have to tell a REAL lie, either.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem telling a loan officer what he wanted to hear about my clusters because I don't think it's any of his business. Even if I had to lie. They want to give you a loan. They're giving anybody who can sign their name a mortgage and you could probably get a car loan if you're unemployed right now. The bank's cost of money is at a forty year low.
On the other hand, I would never lie to a loan officer about my finances because that would be TRULY dishonest! (Yes, I know that's an oxymoron.)
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| « Last Edit: Jan 23rd, 2004, 7:35am by t_h_b » |
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No, it's not a headache--it's a Stage Ten Primary Chronic Periodic Idiopathic Trigeminovascular Cephalalgic Crisis.
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nutty2chat2003
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #6 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 7:46am » |
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Thanks to everyone who has offered advice.
My screen name before was nutty2chat. Most just called me Angela.
As far as what worked for me, NOTHING!! I was on just about everything. The one I stayed on for about 11 years was verapamil (6 X 120 mg/day). I've done several intense treatments of prednisone tapers (got thrush from the last one-YUCK!, not to mention the imense amount of weight I gained), elavil, misc anti-inflamtories, Lortab (which I don't suggest-it made it really hard to pace and did nothing for the pain). Most of these I was on simultaneously. I've also tried lots of stuff that didn't work, like anti-seizure meds and lots of psychiatric drugs (for the clusters, although I do think I was loosing my mind) that also didn't work. Oh, I forgot, along with all that other stuff, I was on Lithium. I never liked the imitrex injections. They made my blood feel like it was boiling and rushing to my head and had no effect on the pain. Also, my insurance only covered about 4 or 6 shots per month. They were looking at approved treatments for migraines. I also had a research doc in cincinnati suggest stuffing some sort of hot pepper up my nose. I never tried that one. Of course there were many self
The last thing I looked into was a very expensive treatment that involved an intense beam of radiation to the nerves in my head. I can't remember at the moment what it was called. The doc said it would cost over ten grand per side of my head and both sides would need to be done (even though I only had headaches on one side). This was approved treatment for fiber mialgia (I don't think I spelled that right), but not for cluster, so "experimental" and insurance would not pay. Also the people on the board told me it could cause parallasis in my face and the doctor only gave it a 50/50 chance of success anyway.
I wanted to try O2, but couldn't get the insurance to cover and I couldn't afford the cost involved. I was doing good to cover the doctor bills and scripts.
So as you can imagine, my credit is pretty trashed. Once again cluster headaches has limited my abilities to live a normal life.
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thomas
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #7 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 8:20am » |
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I don't see any mention of melatonin, if all those other meds didn't help much, I would try that. Now stick around, if everybody that was here, was hurting, it'd be pretty depressing around here.......... We gotta have the pf folks around to help keep perspective. Oh and welcome back
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RichardN
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #8 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 8:31am » |
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I really don't understand the attitude of (many) doctors who seem to treat 02 scripts like requests for major narcotics. It's cheap (I pay 10$ bottle - B or E tank), and effective for many of us. Hmmmm...............just answered my on question, didn't I?
Richard
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I can live with the beast as long as I don't have to "dance" with the bastard.
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thomas
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #9 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 8:34am » |
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on Jan 23rd, 2004, 8:31am, RichardN wrote: I really don't understand the attitude of (many) doctors who seem to treat 02 scripts like requests for major narcotics. It's cheap (I pay 10$ bottle - B or E tank), and effective for many of us. Hmmmm...............just answered my on question, didn't I?
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I don't think they get many kickbacks from "O2 reps". LMMFAO 
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fubar
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #10 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 11:38am » |
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The whole oxygen thing is whacky anyway.
First, the doctors seem reluctant to prescribe it. Could this be related to LIABILITY? I wonder how many people or families have managed to sue their HMO or doctor because they were prescribed Oxygen and ended up in a critical burn unit? It seems to me that Oxygen has a higher potential for UNINTENTIONAL accidents than say verapamil or even narcotics.
Second, the doctors seem to have wildly different ideas about the flow required to help a cluster patient, and most won't buy in to the fact that high flow is necessary. We know it is necessary, but they seem to think it will work at 7 lpm if it's going to work at all. Then, when it doesn't work at that rate, they decide that Oxygen just doesn't work.
Third, the Oxygen suppliers flat out SUCK ASS. Mine, for example, forces you to 'rent' an Oxygen concentrator at an exorbitant cost to my insurance company even though they know I only use tanks. They happily refill my tanks as often as I want, but I have to keep the concentrator which they 'rent' at about 1/3 of the total cost for the machine, retail. That means they could buy a new one every three months. This is a SCAM SCAM SCAM. They are fleecing the insurance companies.
They didn't even know what a non-rebreather mask was. I had to buy them on the Internet. They couldn't even tell me where to get a high flow regulator. Had to find that myself as well.
It's all complete bullshit. I checked with every Oxygen supplier in my county and they were all the same.
-Fu.
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Tiannia
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #11 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 2:27pm » |
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Angela -
We have only been in our house for a little over a year and I had to explain medical bills from college that was 8 years before. I totally understand. What was said before is true. You can state that you have not been treated for over a year and thus are considered cured. Your neuro can state something similar to this even if all he states is that you have not been treated for a year. No you dont want to lie because there are mortgage companies that will ask for paperwork to back up everything under the damn sun. No it is not any of their business but especially when it is your first loan they have you over a barrell and know that they can get you to do anything to get that loan. But what was also said is true - they want to loan you the money. You dont so muh have to prove anything just have it make sence. make it plausable. As long as they can justify it to themselves that it makes sence then they will go for it - if they question it then they will not.
Tiannia
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Charlie
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #12 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 4:44pm » |
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Getting the loan is the thing. Mostly he wants to hear that it was physical.
Tell him you don't have the attacks now and emphasize this. Give him room to convince himself you're a good bet. He wants to give you the loan.
Good luck.
Charlie
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| « Last Edit: Jan 23rd, 2004, 4:45pm by Charlie » |
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Cerberus
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #13 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 5:49pm » |
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I have to agree with Tianna,Charlie and T_H_B on this one. Your medical condition is none of his business, Your immediate ability to pay the loan back IS.
I would try this, IF he absolutely HAS to know about your medical condition then print out EVERYTHING from this site and plop the phone book sized file on his desk, the sheer size of that task alone should deter him from asking too many more ??'s about it. Before that, however, I would gather all the outstanding (hospital) bills, and arrange them by date. Upon achieving that task call the billing department and negotiate with them to get some of them "written off" as a finacial hardship thing (some hospitals will do this, especially on the oldest ones, if an agreement to pay the rest is reached, but, negotiation is crucial) simply state that during the time these bills were incurred, there is no way that you could generate enough income to even begin paying them. And that now the general cost overall of medical expenses is still too great. That should lessen the burden some, if sucessful. But be sure to get written documentation from the hospital about it to show the loan guy that you are no longer responsible for a portion of the costs. The rest should be easy.
Hope that helped a bit. 
Ramon
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brad267
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Re: ClusterMonster strikes in a new way
« Reply #14 on: Jan 23rd, 2004, 9:15pm » |
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Isn't this a case where the term "Cluster Headaches" which sounds so mild, could be used as your advantage?
Say something to this effect:
"I was having problems with my head, and we got very concerned..... ran lots of tests.... turns out it was only Cluster Headaches"
Play to their ignorance? Just an idea...
Hope it all works out. I've been through the financial microscope trying to buy a house, and it sucks!!!
-Brad
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